My Mods have resulted in long load times. What can i do ?

[NanakoMagojiro]

Hi all, PC specs first since its probably relevant

 

Windows XP 64 bit

8GB ram (DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz)

AMD fx-4300 (3.8 GHz, quad core)

AMD Radeon R9 270X

 

It's a pretty beefy gaming rig, should be more than capable of everything i'm doing. Skyrim is running on an SSHD, which is mostly only a little faster than a normal mechanical drive.

 

im using all the unofficial patches too.

 

I've installed a ton of complimentary graphical mods, most relevant to this problem are large texture replacers, and increasing ugridsToLoad to 7 (and cell buffer to 64), and an ENB injector which significantly increased load times (the wrapper version caused crashing for me)

 

As a result of all this modding, some of my load times have increased rather troublesome amounts. Most notable is the initial loading a savegame after starting skyrim up, this takes about 40-50 seconds of looking at a loading screen. This is pretty logical, kind of what i expected.

 

Other load times within the game are much shorter, and not really an issue, but in general i'd love to improve the load times. That initial load time is especially painful for me right now, since i'm in the phase of "install one mod, then startup skyrim and check it doesn't crash, then install another mod". Which means i'm having to sit through it repeatedly.

 

I don't want to sacrifice things though. All the graphic enhancements i've installed are worth that extra load time for me, so i don't intend to undo any of the stuff i've done. But i'd like any OTHER recommendations that could help reduce load times. Any optimisation mods ?

 

In the near future i'm planning to significantly overclock my CPU, and that should help a bit. In the long run i'm also open to installing an SSD (and putting skyrim on it) or upgrading to faster RAM, if either of those would make a significant difference. But in the meantime, are there any mods/tweaks/etc that i could do, to help things along?

[PetPet]

UgridsToLoad = 7 will significantly add to load time for exterior cells no matter what. You can try running texture optimizing tools (e.g., texture optimizer) to compress your texture files / folder, and use some pre-optimized mods (e.g., a few for vanilla landscapes and equipments). Other than that...SSD could help to a certain degree but that is about it. If you pick to use Ugrids 7 then enable ENB, you are essentially telling your system to load "everything and then some". Your system will comply but would not be too happy about it.

 

P.S. One more suggestion, you can try disable ENB effects (via in-game menu) and see if that will help with load time. If so, at least you can rule out one factor. Hope it helps.

[NanakoMagojiro]

You can try running texture optimizing tools (e.g., texture optimizer) to compress your texture files / folder,

 

Other than that...SSD could help to a certain degree but that is about it. If you pick to use Ugrids 7 then enable ENB, you are essentially telling your system to load "everything and then some". Your system will comply but would not be too happy about it.

 

P.S. One more suggestion, you can try disable ENB effects (via in-game menu) and see if that will help with load time. If so, at least you can rule out one factor. Hope it helps.

If i understand correctly, compressing my textures should reduce filesize (and load times) without downgrading the quality of the images? what's the tradeoff here, framerate ?

 

 

I'm not sure about the ingame menu you refer to for the effects. I'm using the Injector version of ENB referenced here: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/30936/?

 

The recommended wrapper version wouldn't work for me, CTD on attempting to start skyrim. All tweaking of ENB settings is done outside the game with an .ini file.

 

I do notice a very significant difference with, and without, the injector running. it certainly adds a lot to the load times. but i can't live without it :P